May inspire a few test drives but lacking in horsepower next to Leo Timmers’ Gus’s Garage (2017) or even Gail Gibbons’ staid...
Over the course of a day, a parade of vehicles from a motorcycle to a fire truck check in to a garage for servicing, mechanical repairs, a paint job, or a wash.
The text promises “a world of great surprises” when the illustrations of this latest entry in the Shine-a-Light series are positioned in front of a light source. The trick does give viewers a sort of X-ray vision that allows glimpses inside tool boxes and a motor home, and they can see through a building to the tow truck that’s parked around a corner. Some of the details hinted at (a mechanic attaching a huge wheel to a heavy-duty tractor, the tail fins of a 1950s-era roadster, and a car emerging from a car wash, for instance) are at least partially visible and easily recognizable in the illustrations, rendering the silhouetted, backlit view something of an anticlimax. Other details (a motorcycle being, well, detailed and underground gasoline storage tanks, for instance) are a bit more interesting. The various vehicles and tools on display are all thoroughly stylized, too. Still, Davis does stock his preternaturally tidy, clean garage with mechanics of both sexes and dark- as well as light-skinned figures, and the author closes with quick descriptive comments about each type of vehicle that stops in.
May inspire a few test drives but lacking in horsepower next to Leo Timmers’ Gus’s Garage (2017) or even Gail Gibbons’ staid Tranportation (2017). (Informational novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61067-598-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names...
A lad finds a big red dragon in his basement and wisely seeks expert advice about its care and feeding in this epistolary episode.
Young Alexander’s missives (there are no cellphones, nor parents, in sight) are mostly paraphrased rather than shown, but each response comes as a small note folded into a pocket that’s been printed and shaped like an envelope: “Douse it in water right away!” writes panic-stricken fire chief H.Y. Drant; find it a large house or castle, advises B. East of World Animal Welfare; “fatten it up,” suggests Angus Teak the butcher (“Look forward to [eating, scratched out] meeting your dragon”) with sinister relish. Boy and dragon have wonderful times together, but the ultimate realization that dragons really don’t make good pets leads the narrator to follow the written advice of best friend Hillary (“the wisest person I knew”) and set it free. The later arrival of a slightly burned picture postcard in the “post” reassures him that the dragon won’t be forgetting to keep in touch. The human figures in Yarlett’s cartoon illustrations are either white or have their heads cut off at the page top. With the exception of the pasted-on postcard from the dragon at the end, all of the correspondence is removable and thereby losable.
Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names add some appeal. (Novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61067-818-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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